The Glow of the Moon on a Starless Night
by Ryeloza
Summary: It’s the classic story of boy meets girl; boy has sex with girl in his office; boy goes off with girl to live in marital bliss. Or something close to that. A Tom and Lynette pre-series story.
1. Collision Course

**Disclaimer: **I don't own even a little part of _Desperate Housewives_, just my overactive imagination and a blog that allows me to write down my obsession in my own safe little world.

**Story Summary: **It's the classic story of boy meets girl; boy has sex with girl in his office; boy goes off with girl to live in marital bliss. Or something close to that. A Tom and Lynette pre-series story.

**The Glow of the Moon on a Starless Night**

A story by **Ryeloza**

**Part One: Collision Course**

_**The Elevator**_

Tom leaned back against the wall of the elevator and stole a glimpse of the leggy blonde who had just entered. To his surprise, she threw a glance back at him, a coy smirk playing on her face. He vaguely recognized her as one of the recent new hires, but they'd brought on so many new people in the past month that names were still iffy.

"Uh, sorry about the kissing," he said, though he didn't really have the impression that this woman disapproved. "Sometimes the only time we see each other during the day is on the elevator ride up to the art department."

"I'm not judging you."

Tom nodded, although the woman was facing the door again and couldn't see him. "I'm Tom Scavo, by the way."

She turned and gave him a tight smile. "One of the creative directors; I know. I'm Lynette Lindquist."

Tom raised an eyebrow at her introduction; he'd heard Annabel mention Lynette before. They'd worked together on a couple of projects now. Smart, Annabel had said, but also very intense. "Oh, you're one of the, uh, new account executives, right?"

"Hmm. Yes."

"Annabel's mentioned you."

Lynette gave a strange, almost insincere laugh, and said, "I'm sure." Oddly, whatever putdown seemed implicit in her phrase didn't remotely grate on Tom's nerves. Instead he found himself chuckling at her and in return she gave him the first earnest smile he'd seen from her, tilting her head curiously as she did so.

A moment later the elevator doors opened and they exited, walking a ways side by side before Lynette said, "Have a nice day," and turned abruptly down the hall. Tom paused, watching her retreating form before continuing to his office.

_**The Break Room**_

"Jon went out with her."

"When?"

"Last weekend. Said the night ended with a one-armed hug."

"Ouch. That's rough."

Tom looked up from the proposal he was reviewing to where Tony and Jake stood near the coffee maker. "Who is this?" he asked.

"Jon and that new account exec. Uh, Lynn or Laine."

"Lynette?"

"Yeah, that's it." Jake shook his head. "She's pretty, but she seems like a bitch. She's shot down three of my ideas in the past two weeks. Not even Dickerson was that picky. And Jon said she was stone cold."

"Yeah, well Jon's a dick," said Tony. Tom sniggered.

"Look, all I'm saying is that I wouldn't do her."

Almost predictably—Jake constantly put his foot in his mouth by having conversations like this at work—Lynette chose that moment to enter the room, clearly sizing up all three men with one look. She seemed to dismiss Tom quickly, and Tony averted his eyes when she looked at him, but Jake met her gaze full-on; he was a cocky bastard at times. Surprisingly, Lynette approached him with a half-smile, stopping mere inches from where he stood and throwing his stance off kilter. Without breaking eye contact, she reached around him for the coffee pot and then poured the coffee into her mug mere inches from Jake's pants. When she finished, she turned around and left the room without saying a word.

Jake whistled after she left. "God help the poor bastard who ends up with her."

_**Tom's Office**_

There was a knock on the frame of his office door and Tom glanced up from his computer, startled. Lynette stood at the door, resting her weight only slightly on the frame, and said, "Can I come in for a minute?"

"Sure." Tom leaned back in his chair, trying to mimic Lynette's casualness. "What's up?"

"Lou's swamped so he passed on your NutriCrunch Cereal campaign to me. I just wanted to let you know that we'll be working together."

"Oh. Okay."

Lynette rested her hands on his desk and leaned forward, conspiratorially. It took all of Tom's willpower not to look down her blouse. "Look, between you and me I think Lou gave this one to me because Anderson's being a bear about this account. Lou isn't my biggest fan and I think he wants me to take the flack for this. So I'd like to hit this one out of the ballpark if you're up for that."

Lou was a jerk—he'd hit on Annabel in front of Tom on more than one occasion and booted Tom off of an account once unfairly—but Tom found himself agreeing primarily because Lynette was giving him the most intense gaze he'd ever seen. Her eyes were mesmerizing, but he wasn't sure it was in an entirely good way. "Definitely."

"Great." Lynette stood up. "I'll look over what you have done so far and then we can meet tomorrow."

Tom nodded. "Can't wait."

_**The Conference Room**_

Tom was staring at Lynette again.

They'd been working on the NutriCrunch account for about a week, and in that time Tom had discovered several things about Lynette. She had an incredible work ethic; she liked pineapple on her pizza; she could talk or argue her way through any disagreement; and her zeal was the sexiest thing about her. She had this way of getting so impassioned about whatever she said or did that it made a light bloom in her. Even when he was so frustrated that he just wanted to tell her to shut up, he still found himself attracted to her.

And now that attraction was spilling over into mundane situations. Just yesterday they had been in a meeting, listening to Anderson blather on about budgets and incentive plans, and Tom had found his attention drawn to Lynette's lips as she tapped a pen against them.

Really, he hadn't been too concerned by this. There had been other women he'd worked with that he'd liked to look at and nothing ever came of it. He assumed it would be the same with Lynette.

Today they were in the conference room again to listen to the second part of Anderson's budget lecture. If possible it was even duller than the one yesterday, and Tom sat back in his chair, allowing his eyes to follow Anderson every so often, but primarily concentrating on Lynette. She looked like she was about to fall asleep and she kept making sharp movements every so often to jolt herself awake.

"We have to make cutbacks, people!" Anderson suddenly yelled, slamming his fist on the table. Lynette jumped and then frowned, uncharacteristically caught off guard. She shook her head as though she was disappointed in herself and reached back to unclip her hair. For a moment, she let it fall loosely around her face and then she began to twist it back up. Unconsciously, Tom shifted in his seat and when it creaked, Lynette looked up. They stared across the table at one another, Tom feeling oddly guilty, and then Lynette smirked at him and let go of her hair. Slowly she ran her hands through it, teasing it out, and then she leaned back in her chair with a satisfied smile.

For the rest of the meeting, Tom forced himself to keep his eyes on Anderson.

_**The Elevator Part Two**_

At the end of the week, he and Lynette rode the elevator downstairs together. Annabel had called him earlier to let him know she'd had a chance to sneak out early and Tom had been surprised by how indifferent he was to this news. He had a feeling that he and Annabel were nearing their end; she was becoming too invested in a relationship that he'd already told her more than once had no future. Even though they'd started out casually, Annabel was clearly pushing to get more serious and Tom didn't want any part of it.

And that was the truth. It had nothing to do with the woman in the elevator with him now. A woman he'd started to think of as pure confidence: high-heeled shoes and power suits coupled with coy smiles and knowing looks and an absolute certainty that everything she said and did would eventually land her at the top. A woman that some primal part of him wanted to slam against the wall and kiss until she couldn't see straight.

"Any big plans for the weekend?"

Tom snapped out of a fantasy that involved Lynette's legs wrapped around his waist. "Uh, what?"

Lynette smiled indulgently. "Any big plans for the weekend?"

"Not really. I was supposed to go visit my sister and her family, but her kids all have the flu or something." Tom stuffed his hands into his pockets. "You?"

"My sister Lydia is putting on a one-woman show this weekend as part of her latest plan to 'find herself.' So I'm probably going to pretend I have the flu." Tom chuckled and for a second he swore he saw some flash of fondness in Lynette's eyes. "So you're not seeing Annabel this weekend?"

Tom's mirth faded and his shook his head. "Annabel and I aren't that serious."

"Ah. Right." She fidgeted with her briefcase and then suddenly reached out and hit the button for the next floor. "I just remembered that I forgot something," she explained. "I'll just get off and catch another elevator back up."

"Oh, well—"

The elevator halted and Lynette scooted out before the doors even opened the entire way. "See you Monday," she called over her shoulder.

"Yep," said Tom to the closing door. "See you Monday."

_**Lynette's Office**_

They'd been meeting in Tom's office primarily, so Tom had only stepped foot in Lynette's a couple of times. The room was rather impersonal; there were a few plants and the only picture was half-hidden behind one of them. Tom pulled it out as Lynette finished up her phone call, trying not to laugh at the bad perm Lynette sported in the picture. She was sandwiched in between two other blondes with similarly bad hair, but they were all grinning and had their arms around one another.

"My sisters," said Lynette. Tom jumped, turning quickly only to find Lynette practically on top of him. He put his free hand on her shoulder to steady himself while she reached out and caught him around the waist.

"Sorry." He dropped his hand from Lynette's shoulder, skimming it down her arm as he went. After a minute, she returned the favor, dragging her hand from his back to run around to his abs in agonizing slow motion. They stared at each other for a moment, and then Lynette stepped back away from him.

"Art department is done," she said. "We can go pick up the work any time."

"Right. Maybe I should go do that now."

"Yeah. Say hi to Annabel for me."

_**The Lobby**_

Since that first day they rode the elevator together, Tom hadn't arrived at work at the same time as Lynette. Lately, he hadn't even been coming in with Annabel, as he'd been spending fewer and fewer nights at her place. So of course both of these unlikely realities came together on the same day to bite him on the ass.

"Hello, Annabel. Tom." Lynette barely looked at either of them, simply staring at the descending numbers above the elevator doors.

To Tom's annoyance, Annabel slipped an arm around his waist. "Hi, Lynette. Did you have a good night off?"

Lynette glanced at them out of the corner of her eyes. "It was fine."

"Well ours was great. Thanks for finally letting this one leave a little early. You two have been putting in way too many late nights lately."

Tom tried to pull away from Annabel, but he didn't succeed before Lynette finally turned to face them. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that. But you know we have the final presentation coming up next Monday, which means that we're going to be here late the rest of the week. But I'm sure you'll find some way to survive." Lynette glanced at her watch. "Well this elevator is taking forever and I have to be in a meeting in five minutes. I'll just take the stairs. See you two later."

Tom watched Lynette's retreating form—she was wearing a skirt that really clung to what few curves she had—until Annabel pulled away from him and punched his arm. "You're a real pig sometimes, you know that?"

_**The Break Room Part Two**_

"Sorry about yesterday morning."

Tom took a sip of his coffee and considered Lynette, who sat at one of the tables nursing a mug of of her own. After the scene in the lobby the day before, Lynette had successfully avoided him for the rest of the day, leaving him to work on his own. Finding her in the break room seemed to be a fortuitous moment.

"That woman just gets under my skin for some reason," Lynette added. "And I let her push me too far. So I'm sorry."

"I'm going to break up with her."

"What?"

Tom shrugged. "I'm thinking about breaking up with her."

"Not because of—"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Lynette—"

"Look, I didn't want to make this into a big deal. I just wanted to say I'm sorry and let things get back to normal, you know? Whether you break up with Annabel or not, it's none of my business."

Tom dumped the rest of his coffee down the drain, no longer craving the caffeine. "Fine. That's fine. I guess…" Tom shrugged off the words.

"You guess what?"

"I just wondered if maybe you'd want to make it your business?"

"I shouldn't."

"That's not what I asked."

"I know. I'm sorry." Lynette gave him a helpless look that he never would have imagined seeing and then pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. Suddenly, Tom couldn't fathom another second of being alone with her without kissing her senseless. Knowing that she wasn't going to admit any attraction between them, though, left him hurt and angry enough that instead he just left the room.

_**Tom's Office Part Two**_

By Thursday night, they no longer had the option of avoiding one another, so they hunkered down in his office to work. The atmosphere was stilted in a way it had never been; he still felt wounded in some indefinable way and she crept around on tiptoe, clearly an unnatural behavior. They ordered pizza around nine and ate it in his office, side by side on the floor. An eerie, unusual quiet hung in the air as they ate; normally they constantly bantered, even if it was only about the account, and Tom could feel that something was coming.

"I'm not good at this, you know."

Tom dropped the crust of his pizza back into the box and feigned ignorance. "You wouldn't be working your way up the ladder if you weren't good at your job."

"Don't be like that. You know what I mean."

He turned to look at Lynette, ready to go on the offensive, just as her head drifted down to rest on his shoulder. It was the most deliberate contact they'd had and he paused, startled by the sudden physicality. Her hair tickled his nose and without really considering his actions, he pressed it closer into her smooth blonde locks, inhaling the fruity scent of her shampoo. In response, she burrowed nearer to him, her nose nuzzling his neck.

"Lynette…"

Lynette shifted and her lips settled right on his Adam's apple, bestowing the lightest of kisses before fluttering away. It took every scrap of willpower Tom possessed to keep from pushing her down onto the carpet and taking her right in his office. Slowly, she pulled back and raised her big blue eyes to meet his. They were as intense as the first day he really looked into them, but this time he felt a flutter of excitement. He could read one thousand different things in her eyes, but the most important one to him was the explicit invitation: she wanted this as much as he did.

The tentativeness of the situation held Tom spellbound; before anything could break the moment, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Lynette's. For a moment, the kiss stood still, just his lips meeting hers. Then Lynette captured his top lip between hers, moving in a way so softly sensual that every ounce of blood rushed straight from his head to a lower extremity of his anatomy. Much too soon, Lynette pulled back, but she lifted her hands to rest against his cheeks, running her thumbs over his lips. Tom kissed them, stilling their movement, and she sighed. "What are we doing?" Unable to respond in words, Tom leaned forward and kissed her forehead, her cheek and then her mouth again before drawing his lips away. "Tom," she breathed softly, and Tom took a deep breath to calm his shaky nerves.

"We're kissing," he said finally.

Lynette pecked him again, more playfully. "Why?"

"Because I've wanted to kiss you from the moment I first saw you. And now that I have, I don't think I'm ever going to be able to stop."

A large grin broke out on Lynette's face, lighting all her features as though they were glowing from the inside out and in that moment she was the most stunning sight he'd ever seen. With a cheerful little sound he knew he wanted to hear again, she kissed him, more searing, more passionately than she had yet. Any restraint Tom had left vanished, and he wrapped his arms around her, tugging her up into his lap, and shivering at the contact of her body so close to his.

He never once considered it to be cheating.


	2. Combustion

**Disclaimer: **I have no rights to _Desperate Housewives_. As if that wasn't obvious by now.

**The Glow of the Moon on a Starless Night**

A story by **Ryeloza**

**Part Two: Combustion**

_**Distraction**_

Lynette put her panties back on and then slipped into Tom's button-down shirt. It seemed like a fair compromise considering that they were alone, but still in the office. Tom had run down to the break room in nothing but his boxer shorts to get some water, and by the time he returned she was immersed in the campaign again.

"What are you doing?"

"I'd rather not spend the whole weekend working on this if I can help it. Do you think the words would pop more if we redid them in green?"

Tom gave her that same curious expression she'd seen on his face a number of times over the past few weeks. She knew he was constantly trying to riddle her out and she was both flattered and unnerved by this; no one before had ever seemed so interested in figuring out how she thought. Drawing a bare leg up to her chest and resting her head thoughtfully against her knee, Lynette picked up a pen and jotted down a note to change the color of the font.

"I think I'll need to see them side-by-side to decide for sure, but I have a feeling that green will be better."

Tom tossed both bottles of water onto the couch and came up behind her to look down at the mock-ups she had laid out on his desk. Instead of giving her his opinion, though, he rested one hand on the arm of the chair and used the other to brush her hair away from her neck. Seconds later, she felt his lips softly imprinting kisses on the back of her neck.

"Tom…"

"Green would be good. Blue would be better," he mumbled against her skin.

"Oh, yes! Blue!" Lynette leaned forward and scratched out her previous note and Tom's hands settled on her shoulders, his thumbs kneading her muscles. "And the font size is okay, right? I think any bigger and it would detract from—"

"Are we really going to work on this for the rest of the night?"

"That's why we're _at_ work."

Unexpectedly, he used his grip on her to spin the chair around and her pen flew from her fingers, disappearing out of sight. Before she could protest, he leaned down and kissed her soundly, leaving her only able to form an argument between kisses. "Tom…we're supposed to…be…working." He continued to kiss her and she found it harder to form a coherent argument after each one. "We…uh…Overtime isn't…" Giving up, Lynette looped her arms around Tom's neck and the next thing she knew Tom lifted her from the chair, his hands warm and firm against her bare thighs.

They didn't get any more work done that night.

_**Diversion**_

"Did you break up with Annabel?"

Tom looked up and smiled at her, despite how tired he seemed. "Hey, beautiful." Lynette tipped her head at the unexpected term of endearment and fought a smile of her own. "I got those changes we made last night down to the art department. They're going to try to have it done before lunch."

"That's great." She stared at him expectantly.

"And I may have run into Annabel."

Lynette stepped into the office, but refused to shut the door, instead lowering her voice. "Why did you break up with her?" She meant: "Why did you break up with her _in the office_," but the words died on her lips. Somehow the other question seemed more important.

"Well we spent the better part of last night having sex, so it seemed like a good idea."

"Tom, she just stormed past my office crying. I don't understand why—"

"Look, I ran into her and she confronted me about being in the same suit I wore yesterday. It's not like I went into specifics about what we were doing, but she kind of figured it out. She knew something was going on between us. What's the big deal? I thought you'd be happy about this."

Lynette shrugged, uncomfortable with the question because she wasn't sure how to answer it. She'd spent the better part of six weeks flirting with a man she knew was taken, had sex with him in his office, and now it seemed that he'd broken up with his girlfriend for her. None of those actions fit with how she perceived herself and that upset her more than she wanted to admit to Tom. Worst of all, Tom was right: she was genuinely happy with this turn of events; she wanted Tom and apparently he wanted her too.

"I was going to break up with her anyway. She kept pushing for me to propose and that was never going to happen whether you came along or not."

"Why—"

"I didn't love her, Lynette."

"Right." She rolled her neck, trying to work out the knots that she'd gotten from sleeping on the couch in her office. "This is going to be water cooler gossip for weeks."

"I'm surprised you care."

"I don't. Not really. But…"

"We'll just keep it quiet. We can keep it out of the office from now on."

Three things ran through Lynette's mind almost simultaneously: one, she had an overwhelming desire to kiss Tom now that he'd said that; two, she wondered if her apartment was tidy enough to invite Tom over that night; and three, she had an inkling that this might very possibly end with her being branded a slut.

_**Risk**_

He passed her a pen and used it as a deliberate excuse to brush her fingers, keeping in contact a few seconds longer than anyone else would.

That was how it started.

Lynette viewed this action as an open invitation to up the ante. Where they had spent weeks covertly flirting before, now they'd play a new game composed of risky touches meant to stay hidden from their co-workers. It was probably stupid; it certainly went against their agreement to keep their tryst out of the office; and they'd probably get caught. But she couldn't let Tom think he'd won with that little pen-passing play.

She deliberately sat next to him in the conference room the next day. While Anderson began a tirade on something or other—he was constantly lecturing them—she slipped off her shoe and slowly ran her stocking-clad toes around Tom's ankle. He visibly stiffened at the contact, but he didn't look at her and Lynette simply continued to stare at their boss like he was reciting the most beautiful poetry in the world. Gradually, she ascended up his leg, drawing her toes in curlicue patterns all the way up to his knee. Then she withdrew her foot and slipped her shoe back on as though nothing had happened.

As soon as he opened the door of her apartment that night, Tom had his mouth on hers and his arms around her, slamming her back into the wall.

Honestly, Lynette hadn't expected retaliation. The game was something that existed only in her mind and she didn't think that Tom would realize if she tortured him a little for every time he let a hand linger on the small of her back or he brushed her shoulder as he passed her in the hall. Then came Tuesday morning.

Lynette sat in the break room talking with Lou about a potential client when Tom entered, poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down next to her to read a section of the newspaper. Lou shot him a dirty look—it was strangely awkward that Tom had chosen to sit there when they were in the middle of a conversation—but continued talking as though nothing had happened. She did a fairly good job of ignoring Tom until she felt his hand settle on her knee. Immediately she knew that it was payback and she silently cursed herself for being naïve enough to think it wasn't coming.

"Who else is in the bidding?" she asked. Tom's hand slipped under the hemline of her skirt.

"Klein and Strethford and the Hooper Group."

"The Hooper Group is nothing," said Lynette, painfully aware of how Tom was now trailing his fingers along the edge of her panties, "but…uh…Klein and…uh…"

"Strethford."

"Yeah, them. They could…be…" Tom took a moment to squeeze her thigh and then withdrew his hand, mercifully granting her control of her brain again. "…a threat," she finished.

After Tom finally left the break room and she finished talking to Lou, she waited only ten minutes before storming into Tom's office without knocking. He was standing by his desk on the phone, but he smirked when she entered and held up one finger to indicate that she wait. She gave him time to say, "Yeah, that sounds good," before she walked close enough to him that they stood toe-to-toe. Tom looked down at her nervously and Lynette gave him a wicked grin before she reached out and cupped him through his pants.

"Oh God," muttered Tom, and then more loudly into the phone he said, "Nothing, _Mom_, but someone just walked in here. Can I call you back? Yeah. Yeah. Love you too. Bye." He glared down at her. "You are just so—"

"I just wanted to see if you'd be interested in working up some ideas for the Thompson salad dressing people. Lou's getting into it too and then we're going to pitch to Anderson and he's going to pick who gets to go after the client. It's a big account. You interested?" She massaged him for a moment and he closed his eyes, leaning back against his desk.

"God, yes."

"Excellent. I will talk to you later then."

"Yep."

By the time she got back to her office, Tom had sent her an email that read, "You'll pay for that one." Without hesitating, she replied, "Looking forward to it."


	3. Contusions

**The Glow of the Moon on a Starless Night**

A story by **Ryeloza**

**Part Three: Contusions**

_**Nicks**_

Tom knocked on the bathroom door. "You almost done in there?" he called out.

"You can come in!"

For a moment, he hesitated. Despite the fact that he had spent a good part of nearly three weeks stark naked with this woman, it somehow felt intrusive to walk in on her in the bathroom. He had no idea what she was doing in there and even though all he wanted to do was to brush his teeth, the act still seemed oddly intimate. He was the type of guy who brushed his teeth after the woman in his bed had fallen asleep; the type of guy who went home to his own apartment before dawn to get ready for work because he didn't leave clothes at his girlfriend's place; the type of guy who didn't go into any bathroom—even his own—if there was a woman in there. But in the middle of his moment of hesitation, a niggling curiosity imbedded into his mind: just what would _she _do if he did go in and brush his teeth?

Tom opened the door.

Lynette sat on the edge of his bathtub, body wrapped in one of his dark blue towels, hair twisted up in one of his green ones, bent over her leg with what appeared to be his razor. It took Tom a second to comprehend that she was shaving her legs. With his razor. He should have stayed out in the hall.

"Hey," she said casually, not even looking up at him. "I forgot to ask you earlier: did you get an invite to Hilary's wedding? Tom?" Lynette washed away some of the soap on his razor under the water and then turned her head over her shoulder to look at him. "Uh, what's with you?"

"I…just…um…Is that my razor?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

"Look, I don't have time to go home and change tomorrow morning, so I'm going to have to wear one of the suits I picked up from the dry cleaners on my way over here. I was planning on the black skirt, but if this is a big problem for you…"

Tom shrugged, acutely uncomfortable and not sure what to say. "It's just that it's my razor."

"Yeah, I got that part."

"That I use on my face."

"Yeah."

"That you're using on your legs."

Lynette looked at him as though he was crazy; Tom was beginning to think that he was. "Yes. My legs. Which have straddled you many, many times over the past few weeks. Which you have kissed your way up more than once." She drew the razor up her shin, pulling away a trail of soap as she did so, and then threw another glance back at him.

"It's…fine," he said reluctantly, not sure if he was bothered more by her actions or by the fact that her argument seemed somewhat logical. "Go ahead."

He left the room without brushing his teeth and was already in bed with the light out when Lynette slipped under the covers to join him.

_**Bites**_

On Friday they ate lunch in her office. He'd been showing her what he'd finished for the Thompson salad dressing people and they'd ended up just ordering up from the sandwich place downstairs. Lynette perched on the edge of her desk, her legs crossed, and thoughtfully took another bite of her apple. After the razor incident on Wednesday night she'd spent Thursday at her own place and Tom was feeling kind of silly about the whole thing.

"I got that invite to Hilary's wedding," he mentioned, finally answering the question she'd asked two nights ago.

Lynette nodded. "You want the rest of this?" She tossed him her half-eaten apple before he could answer and Tom caught it one-handed.

"Do you want to go together?"

"You don't have to do this."

Tom took a bite of the apple. "Do what?" he asked.

"Whatever it is you think you're doing to make up for the other night. It's over. Done. I bought a whole pack of disposable razors last night to keep in my car. It won't happen again."

"I might have overreacted a little."

"We don't have to talk about this."

"I really do want to go to the wedding together." It was true. Once he'd blocked out the memory of the razor enough to remember what she'd initially asked him in the bathroom, the thought of seeing her dressed up, of dancing with her, had warmed him to the idea of attending the wedding.

"Other work people will be there."

"So?"

"So what about our little pact to keep this out of the office?"

"That's not the office."

Lynette nodded. "Okay."

_**Bruises**_

Annabel used to lie in bed after they had sex and spin a yarn about the wonderful life they could have together with perfect kids and a perfect house and a perfect dog. Every time she went on in this fashion, Tom felt a suffocating dread close in around his heart that would only find release when he'd abruptly cut Annabel off, saying, "But that's not what I want." Then she would get quiet and roll away from him, angry, or get out of bed and go to the bathroom where he could hear her crying over the sound of running water. Sometimes, she would even go home.

After he and Lynette had sex, he never quite knew what to expect. Sometimes she'd curl up into him and fall asleep. Sometimes she'd feel like talking: long-winded rants about work; ideas she had for campaigns; pretty stories about college and living in Chicago. Sometimes she'd ask him a long string of questions, not nosy or prying, but questions that were soft and sleepy; ones she actually seemed to want to hear the answer to—as though she had a genuine interest.

"Where did you grow up?" or "What are your parents like?" or "What was the best vacation you ever took?" or "Did you have an imaginary friend when you were a kid?" And he liked to answer them while stroking the soft skin of her arm or back.

She didn't talk about her own childhood. She mentioned her sisters in a joking manner; the set up of, "You'll never guess what Lydia did now…" with a punch-line that was sometimes more tragic than funny. There were brief mentions of high school and even fewer of when she was young and she never talked about her parents. It was a closed up portion of her life that he didn't have the key to access.

He never told her about his one true childhood trauma: of catching his father kissing a woman who was not his mother in the back of a car one day after school; of the weeks of agonizing whether or not to tell her; of finally deciding that it was the right thing to do only for his mother to casually dismiss it as, "I'll make sure your father keeps it out of the house." At fourteen it shattered any illusion he had of happy marriages or life-long commitment and he'd stubbornly maintained this idea over a decade later.

Annabel never knew either. He wondered if it would have made a difference and found that he didn't particularly care.

But he also wondered if some day Lynette would come to the same roadblock and he'd lose her too. That worried him more than he wanted to admit.

_**Scars**_

The following weekend he went to Lynette's apartment for the first time, surprised to find that it was a haven that was light and airy and blue. Surprised that he felt comfortable there, among the slight clutter and the worn furniture and simple artwork. They watched a movie together on her couch until about halfway through when Lynette began to kiss his neck, alternating every few kisses with a bite that she'd quickly salve with her tongue. By the time she had removed her shirt and her bra, they were barely coherent enough to move into her bedroom. As she pushed Tom down onto her bed and he found himself surrounded by the smell of fabric softener and her perfume and that scent that was just her, he found himself suddenly, blissfully content in a way he'd never been before.

Afterwards, when they were both in a hazy fog of sleepiness, Tom lay still and traced the feminine contours of her back with his eyes. The plane of her back was nearly perfect: smooth and silky except for one thin, faded scar—a jagged line that ran just about two inches along her right shoulder blade. He'd noticed this scar before, but tonight felt particularly drawn to it. He wanted the story behind it; he wanted to know why it was there, marring her skin with a perfect imperfection. Gently, he followed the line of the scar with his index finger and she shuddered at the touch, reaching down to tug the sheet up around her shoulder. He realized before he even spoke that his question could be a loaded one, but he asked it anyway. "How'd you get that scar?"

She shrugged, and he found himself torn between letting her drop what was clearly an uncomfortable topic and his piquing curiosity to know everything. "It was a long time ago," she finally said.

"Oh." Lynette rolled over to face him and ran a hand over the stubble that graced his cheek. "You know," he said honestly, "you can tell me anything."

She nodded seriously and then kissed him, taking advantage of the distraction to roll on top of him. Instinctively his hands settled on her ass and he moaned as she pulled away and began to leave a trail of wet kisses down his body. As she took him in her mouth, his mind went completely blank and it wasn't until long afterward, as she was draped over his chest asleep, that he remembered the scar.

_**Twinge**_

They didn't go on dates those first few weeks together, but that Saturday he woke up with the sudden, persistent need to take her somewhere. So they got dressed and climbed into his car and he took her to an art museum where they spent hours walking around discussing or laughing at or quietly observing the artwork. Under the light of a stained glass window, with rainbows of red and blue streaking her blond hair odd colors, he kissed her for the first time in public. She responded slowly—so slowly that for a moment he thought that maybe he shouldn't have kissed her—but once her hand came to rest against his cheek and she sighed into his mouth he knew that he'd created a singularly perfect moment in their lives.

_**Wounds**_

Sunday night they went to bed early, making love in a quiet, romantic way that they had never done before. It was as wonderful as it was different and afterward Lynette looked lovelier, somehow, than he'd seen her before. When she rolled away from him, already half-asleep, he found himself fixated on her scar again, even though it was hidden beneath the sheet. And he thought, perhaps in a moment of complete lunacy, that in light of the previous day maybe this time he would get a different result.

Slowly, he drew the sheet away from her shoulder, somewhat surprised when she allowed him to unveil the scar again. With the barest of touches, he placed a kiss at the base of the old wound and tenderly repeated the action until he'd kissed it entirely. Quietly, lips against the faded line, he asked, "Does is still hurt?" He wasn't completely sure what he meant, but he knew that she would make of the question whatever she wished. When Lynette nodded almost imperceptibly, he wrapped his arms around her and curled around her body until they were snaked together totally. "You can tell me."

The room became so silent that the air felt almost thick, but Tom was determined to wait her out. He couldn't explain why this was so important to him; it simply was. Finally, she began to speak, in a tone that was almost clinically detached.

"I was thirteen. I was at the pool all day with some of my friends and when I got home my mom was drunk. Which wasn't anything unusual, but instead of ignoring us like she usually did, she dragged my sisters and me into the kitchen for some big family meeting. She'd had a biopsy done a few days before that and she found out that afternoon that it was cancer, so she was out of her mind upset and ranting on and on, scaring the hell out of Lucy and Lydia. She kept saying that she didn't deserve to be sick, that she'd been a good person her whole life and something in me snapped. So I told her that it wasn't true, that she had earned breast cancer because she was nothing but a cheating whore who'd driven away our stepfather. She was furious and she raised the beer bottle she had in her hand and I knew that she was going to break it over my head, so I turned to try to get out of the way and it broke against my back instead. The broken edge of it dragged over my bare skin. I needed seven stitches. I lied and told the doctor that it happened at the pool."

Tom was silent for a moment as she finished, almost unable to comprehend the soullessness of such an action. "Your mother did that to you?"

"My mother is a no good drunk who spent years beating the hell out of me and my sisters. But that was the last time she ever touched any of us."

"But you were thirteen…That's thirteen years of…"

Tom pulled away from her and raked his eyes over every inch of her that he could see. "What are you doing?" she asked, though she sounded more vulnerable than angry.

"Are there others?"

She stared up at him, pain clouding her eyes, and he repeated, more gently, "Are there others?"

Without tearing her eyes from his, she slowly removed the sheet and for the first time a faint blush appeared on her skin. "Here," she said, taking his hand and running it over a smaller scar that lay directly on her left hip bone. He kept his eyes locked on hers as she spoke. "She shoved me and I fell against the corner of an end table." For a moment he broke eye contact, leaning down to kiss the scar; when he looked back at her she whispered, "And here," while grazing his finger over a small circular mark on the inside of her right wrist. "She grabbed my arm and when I tried to kick her to make her let go of me she pressed her cigarette into my wrist." Tom kissed this scar too. He was unable to heal the wounds but so anxious to make them better. The action broke something inside of Lynette and she began to cry and Tom could think of nothing to do but to sit up and pull her into his arms as she let go.

By the end, he could barely breathe from the suffocating swell of emotion. He was angry: at her mother for hurting her; about the physical and emotional scars that would never fade. He was frustrated because he knew there wasn't a damn thing he could do to fix this. There was also pain and grief and an unrelenting urge to protect her, even if she was the most self-sufficient woman he'd ever known. He was proud too: of her ability to still trust; of her success; and of the fact that she chose to confide in him. And underlying everything was the niggling realization that he was falling in love with her: a woman who he'd only known for ten weeks.


	4. Salvage

**Disclaimer: **I didn't mention this in the last chapter, but I didn't own _Desperate Housewives _then and I still don't now. C'est la vie.

**A/n: **Thank you to everyone who has reviewed! I really appreciate the feedback and I'm glad you're all enjoying the story. Please continue to let me know what you think!

**The Glow of the Moon on a Starless Night**

A story by **Ryeloza**

**Part Four: Salvage**

_**Solace**_

That night Lynette dreamed of her childhood. Not of her school years, of moments she remembered clearly in her waking hours, but of days younger than that and of things she usually recalled more as feelings than as true memories: sitting next to her father on the couch while he drank a beer and watched football; singing made-up songs to her sister Lucy to keep her from crying; feeling the stale air around her as she pulled her comforter over her head at night to block out the sounds of her parents fighting. Her mother coming to her late at night and in a rare, almost fictional moment of love, holding her tightly and whispering hopeful, fanciful promises in her ear of how she'd grow up to be better. These flashes of time melded together so they flowed singularly, as though they'd been one day in her life instead of many, many days and weeks and months and years.

She dreamed of a time when Lucy broke their mother's lamp while their father sat like a lump on the couch and when her mother came in raging, demanding to know who was responsible, her father said, "Lynnie," in a way that made her hate her own name. And her mother had grabbed her by the arm, swinging her around so viciously that she dislocated her shoulder. When they returned from the hospital—the doctor more than satisfied with her mother's story of falling off of the garage roof—her father took her aside and said, "You're the oldest, Lynnie. It's your job to protect your sister."

She remembered waking up one morning to find her mother drunk and wailing about how Lynette and Lucy and the-baby-yet-to-come had driven away their father and at that moment in her five-year-old life she'd made some sort of vow of loyalty that she hadn't understood or been aware of at the time. As she grew it was a constant faithfulness that kept her from running away from home or from letting her mother drink herself to death. It kept her—even now—from cutting away the ties of her family and finding an easier road to take. It was something she recognized as irrefutable inside of herself; something that she would carry with her to the grave.

When she woke, restless and broken in a way she had repressed for years, there was a temporary solace in the arms of the man who held her and in the beating of his heart.

_**Wreckage**_

Lynette lived with a constant fear that once a person discovered her vulnerability—the weak little girl inside of her who couldn't fight back—then that person would leave. That seeing the thing she hated most about herself, that person would realize that she wasn't who she pretended to be and fade away from her like a shadow into the night. So when her veneer inadvertently cracked and her secret poured out, she slipped away before the other person could.

Tom wouldn't let her go.

The morning after her confession, Tom was physically present in a way that made her gasp for air. He followed her to the shower, played with her fingers while they ate breakfast, kept his hand on her knee during the drive to work. It smothered her and all she could think of was escaping.

At work she avoided him, burying herself in other accounts and going to lunch with another co-worker. She left before he did—an occurrence so rare that there was no way for Tom to suspect that she'd do it—and ignored his calls that night, burying herself under a mound of blankets and watching black and white movies until she fell into an agitated sleep on the couch.

All of her relationships were attractions based on sex that either fizzled out or grew until she ran scared. She chose men that she knew wouldn't pursue her and secretly wondered every time what she would do if one of them proved her wrong.

Tom badgered her for four days. On Friday night, when her phone didn't ring and there wasn't a knock on the door, she crawled into bed and cried herself to sleep.

_**Advice**_

On Saturday, she called Lucy, who came over with chocolate ice cream and tequila. Her little sister climbed into bed next to her and the two of them nestled together in the way they used to as children who only found comfort in one another.

"What happened?" asked Lucy.

"I was seeing someone. Now I'm not."

"This is about a guy? I haven't seen you cry over a guy since high school." This wasn't precisely true, but Lynette didn't point out that Lucy hadn't been around for a good chunk of her twenties.

"Luce, I need to ask you something. How did you tell Dave about Mom?"

"I gave him a shot and said, 'Prepare for the longest night of your life.'"

"No, I mean, how did you tell him about what our childhood was like?"

"He met Mom and realized what a psycho she is. After he asked me what it was like to grow up with her as a mother and I told him it wasn't easy."

"No details?"

"Sure, I told him that Mom smacked us around. I told him that she has a drinking problem. What else is there to say?"

Lynette hugged a pillow to her chest and watched while Lucy took a couple of big bites of ice cream. "Well what did he say?"

"He said, 'God bless you, Luce, for turning out half-normal.' Such a sweetie I married."

"You didn't care that he knew?"

Lucy rolled her eyes. "You are so sensitive sometimes, Lynnie. What did I care? I'd agreed to marry him. The man had seen me puking my guts out, taken care of me when I was sick, and didn't give a crap that I have to shave the little hairs off of my toes. What is the big deal if he knew that Mom was a shitty mother?" She scooped up another bite of ice cream and then stopped the spoon midway to her mouth. "Don't tell me you broke up with someone over Mom!"

"I don't like people thinking I'm weak."

"Lynette, you're the strongest person I know and deep down you're completely aware of that fact. You're proud of it. What you're really afraid of is letting someone take care of you once in awhile. You're afraid to let anyone get close to you."

Lynette thought of Tom and of how he always looked at her with a sort of tenderness in his eyes that she'd never seen from anyone else. Of how he had held her while she cried over childhood trauma she'd never before spoken about aloud, and of how attentive he had been the next morning. She thought about how just two weeks before that he'd been nearly panic-stricken when he caught her using his razor. She'd known then that she'd crossed some invisible line that he saw as commitment and that it scared him to death. She'd thought he was being ridiculous, but he had clearly gotten past it. Was this entire ordeal really just her version of that incident?

"I don't know how to be that person."

Lucy snorted. "That's because that person is someone who has to let go of control for awhile. Look, Lynnie, it comes down to this: do you ever want to settle down and have a family or do you just want to stay completely isolated for the rest of your life?"

"I think you mean independent."

"No. I mean isolated. Being with someone doesn't mean you have to become co-dependent. If Mom taught us anything, she taught us that." Lucy laid her head on Lynette's shoulder and squeezed her hand. "Just something to think about. Now where did you put that tequila?"

_**Awakening**_

Lynette opened her door to let in her youngest sister, cursing Lucy under her breath all the while. The day Lucy kept a confidence was the day hell froze over. Inside, Lydia dropped her purse on the floor and opened her arms. "You need a hug," she said and she stepped forward to lightly squeeze Lynette.

"Hey Lydia."

"Lucy told me everything!"

"Of course she did."

Lydia stepped back and entered the living room, curling up on the couch like a lounging cat. Reluctantly, Lynette sat down in the chair across from her. Considering romantic advice from her married sister was one thing; even hearing romantic advice from her chronically dysfunctional sister was entirely another. "Look, Lydia, this really isn't necessary."

"Of course it is! _I _know what you're going through! Do you think Lucy knows anything about this?" Lydia waved a dismissive hand. "She's married. We're the ones in this together. Do you know how many guys I've scared away by talking about Mom?"

Flabbergasted, Lynette's mouth bobbed up and down, trying to comprehend her sister. "I…No…"

"Dozens! At least!"

"You're twenty-four."

"So?"

"Yeah…Well, see, Lydia, here's the thing: Tom didn't leave me, I've been the one avoiding him."

Lydia sat up and leaned forward. "What?"

"What exactly did Lucy tell you?"

"That you let Mom get in the way of another relationship. So you're telling me that you found a guy who is okay with all of your mommy issues and you let him go?"

"I don't have 'mommy issues.'" Lynette scowled. "Look, Tom asked me about the scar on my back and I told him what happened."

"And?"

"And…nothing. We went to sleep."

"Do you realize how ridiculous you sound right now?"

"I—"

"Did you cry in front of him? Is that what this is about?"

"No."

"Uh-huh. Look, I love you, but you're an idiot. This Tom sounds like a good guy! Why are you letting yourself get in the way of something that could be great? What are you afraid is going to happen?"

"I don't want to discuss this with you."

"Lynette…"

"No, Lydia, this is stupid. I already had this conversation with Lucy."

"Well clearly you need to have it again! Just answer my one question: what are you afraid will happen if you actually try to have a real relationship with this guy?"

Lynette managed to hold back her scoff at her baby sister talking about being in a real relationship and slowly, hesitantly, answered her question. "He'll leave once he knows who I really am."

Lydia reached across the coffee table and took Lynette's hands in hers. "Lynnie, I hate to break this to you, but he already knows who you really are and he didn't leave. You did. Stop being stupid."

_**Relief**_

Beyond all of her good common sense and instinct, on Monday evening Lynette stood outside of Tom's apartment as per her sisters' prompting. She felt ridiculous, as though now she was the one not getting the not-so-subtle message. She hadn't heard from Tom all weekend and he hadn't shown up to work today, claiming illness. Probably she was better off letting sleeping dogs lie and pretending that the past month or so simply hadn't happened. Probably.

She knocked on the door anyway and spent the next agonizing two minutes shifting her weight from foot to foot and resisting the urge to run. When she heard him approach the door, she shifted her purse on her arm and fidgeted with her car keys, sporadic movements meant to quell her anxiety.

Tom opened the door and immediately Lynette felt foolish for assuming he'd called off of work to avoid her. He stood, wrapped in a blanket with bleary eyes and a pale face. "Lynette?"

"You're sick," she observed stupidly.

"Yeah." He stepped away from the door and Lynette took it as an invitation to follow him inside. She was slightly surprised when he went straight back to his bedroom and flopped down on his bed. Apparently he'd been there all day: tissues and half-filled glasses of water and various cold medicines surrounded his messy bed. He sighed as he settled back against the pillow. "What's up?"

Lynette felt off-kilter and baffled. She'd barely talked to him for a week and he was acting like none of it had happened. In a weird way, she was almost insulted.

"I came to apologize," she said.

"Oh. For what?"

"Tom!"

"Oh, please don't make your voice go that high. I have a headache."

"I just…You…"

Tom opened his eyes and looked at her. "Is this about avoiding me last week? Because I got the message: you needed some space."

"Space?"

"Yeah. Anyway, you lucked out because I've spent the past couple days passed out on my bed, so I didn't really have the energy to bug you over the phone. Guess it worked."

"So what? That's it?"

"Lynette, I understand. You were overwhelmed. It happens. Anyway, you're here now." Tom shut his eyes again and burrowed further into his pillow.

"You knew I'd be back?"

"Well, yeah. Sure."

Against all odds, Lynette felt her eyes well up with tears again and she was glad that Tom had his eyes closed. He knew her. He knew her and he was lying in his bed sick, perfectly comfortable with her presence. And he knew her. "I'm going to make you some soup," she said, swiping her eye. "You want some soup?"

"I don't have any soup. Just come to bed."

Lynette nodded as she toed off her shoes, pausing just a moment to kiss his forehead before climbing into the bed.


	5. Chaos

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. Just for fun. Same old, same old.

**The Glow of the Moon on a Starless Night**

A story by **Ryeloza**

**Part Five: Chaos**

_**Confusion**_

"What the hell did they register for here?" Tom picked up a glass figurine of a unicorn and made a face. "And a better question: what the hell are we doing getting them something from here?"

"Hilary very strongly hinted that no one had taken advantage of the registry here yet. We might as well get her something she wants."

"But one hundred dollars for a two inch figurine? This place is ridiculous!"

"Shh!" Lynette tugged on his hand, pulling him away from the display case. "I'm sure she didn't register for the unicorn."

Tom smirked and scanned the store for something that wasn't hideous, accidentally making eye contact with one of the saleswomen. "Uh oh," he murmured as the tiny brunette marched towards them. "Here comes the Calvary." Lynette swatted his arm with her free hand.

"Why hello there, folks! I'm Alyssa. Are you looking to register with us today?"

"What?"

Lynette gave him a wicked grin then turned to the unsuspecting salesperson. "We're actually here to get someone a wedding present."

"Oh, of course!" The woman tittered obnoxiously. She pointed to Lynette's left hand. "No engagement ring."

"Not yet," said Lynette, squeezing Tom's hand and looking at him with merry blue eyes. He shook his head slightly at the obvious glee she took in his torture.

"Do we need to get on his case, sister?" Lynette pressed her lips together, clearly trying not to laugh, even as the other woman grasped her left hand and held it up in front of Tom. "Now wouldn't her finger look just beautiful with a diamond on it?"

"Yeah, Tom. Wouldn't it?"

Before Tom could formulate a response—his reaction time to the joke was put off by the momentary visual of Lynette's finger sporting a ring—Alyssa began to laugh hysterically, dropping Lynette's hand and slapping Tom's chest. "Look at him blush! Don't worry, sweetie, you don't have to answer! We're just teasing! Now, is the happy couple registered here? If you just give me the last name I'll find their registry for you."

Alyssa babbled on, but Tom stopped listening. His attention was fully focused on not looking at Lynette, whose gaze he could feel surely assessing the heat in his cheeks. He couldn't explain it; he didn't embarrass easily, but somehow Alyssa drawing attention to how he hadn't taken the joke well made him acutely uncomfortable. As Alyssa walked away from them to find the registry, Lynette stood up on her toes and kissed his cheek, letting her lips linger for a moment. "Let's pull together and write Hilary a check," she whispered.

Tom finally looked down at her. "Thank you."

_**Panic**_

The elevator doors opened and Tom fought the urge to cringe at the sight of Annabel carrying a stack of file folders in her arms. She simply gave him the same taut smile that she'd been sporting in his presence since the break-up. "Good morning."

"Hi Annabel."

Stepping into the elevator, she turned away from him and faced the closing doors. Unfortunately, she still seemed hell bent on making small talk. "I heard that you got Hyo Kim to do the art mock-ups for your pitch next week."

"Yeah."

"I was just confused because before you always had me do your artwork."

"No I didn't."

"Well I did most of it. I don't want you to think that we can't work together just because we broke up."

"Annabel, I don't—"

"Are you going to Hilary's wedding?"

Tom paused, thrown by the non-sequitur. "Uh, yeah. Are you?"

Annabel finally turned her head to look at him. "I'm in the wedding, Tom. You knew that. Hilary asked me months ago."

"Right."

Blessedly, the elevator doors chose that moment to open. "Well I guess I'll see you there," said Annabel as they both stepped off of the elevator. "You can save me a dance." She smiled—genuinely this time—and then flounced away from him.

_**Disorder**_

"Your tie is crooked. Come here."

Tom walked over to where Lynette knelt on the bed and she began to fiddle with his tie. "Why are you so fidgety today?"

"I'm not fidgety."

"Well you don't want to go to this wedding."

Unable to deny this accusation, Tom just shrugged. Lynette ran a hand over the length of his tie and then sat back on her legs. "Is this just an aversion to weddings in general or is it to this one in particular?"

"It's nothing," lied Tom. "Just, Annabel is going to be there and she seems to be under the mistaken impression that I'm going to be there alone. I don't want to deal with an ugly scene."

Lynette lay back on the bed, grabbed the end of his tie and tugged on it until he hovered over her. Firmly, she took his face in her hands, running her thumbs over his cheekbones. "We are going to dance and eat some cake and drink way more than we should and then we are going to go up to the hotel room we rented and have lots and lots of sex. That is the point of today, and I won't have you getting in a funk and spoiling the mood. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Good."

"But couldn't we just skip everything else and go straight to the sex?"

_**Bedlam**_

"I'm going to the bar. Do you want something?"

"Wine. Red, if they have it."

Tom nodded and squeezed Lynette's shoulder. Most people had migrated to the dance floor and the line at the bar was mercifully short compared to earlier in the night. Tom sidled up next to an older man who was attempting to hit on the only female bartender and she shot him a grateful look as she removed herself from the conversation to take his order. Of course, this didn't stop the old man from ogling her ass as she bent down to grab the merlot off of the bottom shelf.

The old man leaned towards Tom, clearly too drunk to have any sort of self-awareness. "That is one hot—"

"Why are you here with her?"

Tom spun around at the sound of Annabel's voice and looked down at her in surprise. She had her arms crossed defensively and judging by the high spots of color in her cheeks she had been drinking.

"What?"

"We were supposed to go to this wedding together. You and me."

"Annabel, we broke up."

As though she hadn't heard him, Annabel repeated: "So why are you here with _her_?" She jerked her head in Lynette's general direction and scowled.

"Because we're dating. We have been for awhile now."

"How long is 'awhile,' Tom?"

"I don't know."

"A couple of weeks? A month? You have to have an estimate!"

Tom sighed. "Just about two months."

Annabel nodded. "Right. Just about. And you and I broke up _just about_ two months ago too. Convenient timing."

"Annabel, I didn't want to hurt you."

"Did you sleep with her, Tom? Before you broke up with me?" Annabel stepped closer to him, invading his personal space. "Answer me, damn it! Did you sleep with her?"

"Yes."

In what seemed to be slow motion, Annabel's face crumpled and she heaved a couple of silent sobs. Tom didn't know what to do. Instinctively he wanted to hug her, just to comfort her in this moment of pain; he also desperately wanted to walk away and leave her to pull herself together. Neither action seemed to be the right choice. In his hesitation, as Annabel's face became blotchy and red, she made the decision for him, practically running to get away from him. Dimly, Tom realized that at some point the bartender had set down his drinks and wandered away to help someone else.

"You're a real piece of work buddy," muttered the old man next to him. "Jackass."

_**Confusion Part Two**_

Tom returned to the table and braced a hand on the back of Lynette's chair to lean down toward her ear. "Let's go outside," he said, aware, but not caring, that he was interrupting her conversation.

"Where are the drinks?"

"I forgot. Look, I need some air. Let's go outside."

Something in his face must have convinced her to agree because she nodded and excused herself to the rest of the table. With an arm at the small of her back he led her out to the deck that overlooked the grounds of the country club. As soon as they were out in the warm September night air, Tom felt better and he slowed his hurried pace.

For a moment, Lynette paused to look out at the view, and then she turned and braced her arms, lifting herself so she sat precariously on the railing. He set his hands against her thighs and stepped forward to steal a quick kiss. When he pulled back—as her right hand settled against his cheek and he leaned into the warmth of her touch—the words came out almost involuntarily: "What do you think about marriage?"

To his surprise, Lynette didn't visibly react. Her hand didn't fall from his cheek; her posture didn't change; her face maintained the sweet smile she'd worn all day. Only her eyes alit with a wary spark behind the merriment they'd shone all day. "What do you mean?"

What did he mean? He'd been asked the question himself and he always answered with the same stock response that he never saw himself marrying or having kids. It seemed to be an institution built for the sole purpose of failure and in viewing the wreckage firsthand he'd never wanted to put himself through such a thing. But for some reason, for the first time ever, he actually cared about someone else's opinion on the subject.

"Do you see yourself getting married someday?"

Lynette dropped her hand from his face and shrugged. "I guess in a distant, general way, sure. I've probably imagined it."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why would you want to get married?"

Lowering her gaze, Lynette flipped his hand over and began to trace the lines on his palm with the tip of her finger. "Logically, I know it doesn't make sense. My dad left us without a second thought and my mom cheated on my stepdad and drove him away. Most marriages end in divorce. Obviously marriage isn't the commitment it's supposed to be. But…"

"Yeah?"

Lynette raised her eyes to meet his again and gave a little sigh. "There's still something romantic in the idea of that finality, even if it's just a myth. I mean to know that you're going to be with the person you love, day after day for the rest of your life...that would be something worth having, right?"

"Yes."

"Of course, that's not factoring in betrayal or lies or fights or sickness or any of the other hard stuff that people ignore when they're talking about marriage. I mean, you would truly have to be a fighter to make it through life while still holding someone else's hand."

Tom lifted his hand and wove his fingers together with hers. He liked the look of their hands together: his large and strong entwined with hers small and warm and loving. "I would fight every day to have you in my life."

Lynette didn't say anything; she didn't have to. The words implicated something he'd barely begun to admit to himself let alone to the rest of the world: that for the first time in his entire life, Tom could picture himself growing old alongside someone else.


	6. Fire and Ice

**Disclaimer: **If I wish hard enough then maybe…nope. Still all Marc Cherry's and ABC's.

**A/n: **I'm considering bumping up the rating to M. Just a head's up to anyone who is still reading. In this chapter the only M rated section is the second one, so feel free to skip it if you're uncomfortable with that sort of thing.

**The Glow of the Moon on a Starless Night**

A story by **Ryeloza**

**Part Six: Fire and Ice**

_**Flames**_

"We need to get this done."

Tom leaned back in his desk chair and lifted his feet to rest on his desk. "It's almost midnight. We were done yesterday. Why are we beating this to death?"

Lynette slapped his leg with the folder in her hand and scanned everything that was spread out in front of her on the floor. "This is important."

"You're not even pitching to the client yet. Come on; let's go back to my place. I'll give you a massage."

"Yeah. Sure."

Tom righted himself in the chair and settled his hands on her shoulders, rubbing her sore muscles. Against her will, her eyes fluttered shut for a minute and she moaned. "That feels fantastic."

"It would feel better. At home. In bed." Tom leaned closer so his mouth was right next to her ear. "Maybe I could even throw in a foot rub." Lightly, he bit the rim of her ear.

Lynette opened her eyes and shook him off. "Nice try, Scavo. This is more important right now."

Tom groaned.

"Look, we need to finish this tonight if we're going to get the art department to edit this in time. And then after Anderson chooses our pitch I promise to get really, really drunk and let you have your way with me. Deal?"

"Are you serious?"

Lynette put her hands in his lap and used the leverage to pull herself up until her lips were nearly against his. "I go along with just about anything when I'm drunk." She pecked his lips and then settled back down on the floor. "Now, I don't like the illustration on this one."

_**Burning**_

Lynette felt like her body was on fire. Between the alcohol running through her veins and Tom's mouth persistently licking and biting and kissing every inch of her skin, she thought she might burst into flames. They'd barely been able to undress themselves—at some point Tom had gotten frustrated with the buttons on her blouse and had simply ripped it off—and even now Tom's pants were only around his ankles, her skirt bunched around her waist. She couldn't remember how they'd dealt with her bra, but it was mercifully absent when Tom's hand reached up to knead her breast.

"So fucking beautiful," Tom kept mumbling against her skin. "You are just so fucking beautiful."

She'd presented their pitch to Anderson that afternoon and he'd chosen theirs over Lou's; in three weeks she'd present the same thing to the Thompson people. After work they'd gone out for drinks as she promised, and they had ended up having to take a taxi back to Tom's apartment. Before they were even out of the cab, Tom had managed to remove her panties; once inside they only made it as far as the couch.

And now Lynette was going to spontaneously combust.

She raked her nails over his back, half-coaxing, half-begging for some kind of release, but only able to express her need as, "Please, please, please, please," over and over again. Tom laughed against her stomach, and she moved her hands to grasp his ears, tugging them to make him come back up so she could kiss him. As her tongue began to duel with his, he finally pushed inside of her, and she arched her back, burning alive.

_**Frostbite**_

Lynette pulled a couple of paper towels out of the dispenser and nearly jumped a foot in the air when behind her a door creaked open and Annabel stepped out of a bathroom stall. She hadn't even heard anyone else enter the room and Annabel's cat-like movements unnerved her, especially when she calmly crept over to the sink and turned on the water.

"Wow, you're a little jumpy, aren't you?"

"You startled me."

"Being easily agitated like that can be a sign of guilt, you know."

Lynette sighed. She supposed that getting into this was inevitable, but she'd hoped Annabel would just avoid the confrontation. "Do you really want to do this here? Okay. Fine. Go for it."

"It doesn't work that way, Lynette. You can't give me permission to hate you."

Lynette threw her paper towels away and shook her head. "I can do whatever I want."

"Do you really think he's serious about you? You're a distraction. He probably thought it would be fun to fuck his boss. That's not a relationship."

"Oh God, you still think he's going to go back to you," said Lynette, blatantly ignoring Annabel's insinuations and her mistaken belief that she was Tom's boss.

Annabel turned off the water and flicked her hands so droplets flew into the sink. "Tom and I were together for seven months. We were in love. Do you really think he can just forget all that for some blonde whore in a tight skirt?"

"Look, lady, you need a reality check."

"I need a reality check?" Annabel stepped toward her threateningly, but Lynette held her ground. She wouldn't be bullied by this irrational woman. "Fine. But here's a little reality check for you: once a cheater, always a cheater. Just try to remember that."

Annabel passed by her, purposely bumping into her shoulder as she did while Lynette tried to gather her wits. "Oh, by the way," Annabel said, and Lynette turned to face her again, "the Peterson firm is looking to hire a new account executive. Just something you might want to keep in mind." She smiled too widely and left.

_**Smoldering**_

"She obviously planned the whole thing!"

"What, like she followed you into the bathroom? That's stalking."

"Okay, maybe she didn't follow me in there, but she knew exactly what she was going to say to me the next time she got me alone. For God's sake, she told me about how the Peterson firm is looking for a new account exec. You know, implying I should take it. You should have seen her, Tom. She was eerily calm. Like one of those serial killers." Tom laughed and offered her a taste of the sauce he was cooking for the spaghetti. "That's good. What am I going to do about Annabel?"

"Nothing. You're going to do nothing."

"I can't 'do nothing.'"

"Lynette, trust me, this is between me and Annabel and she's trying to drag you into it to cause problems. Just leave it alone."

Lynette took a sip of wine and rolled her eyes. "She's going to try to get you back. You should have heard her, going on and on about how in love you two were."

Tom snorted. "I didn't love Annabel."

"Well she loved you and she's going to try to get you back."

"It doesn't matter. I don't want her back. I'm with you now. I love you."

Simultaneously they froze, Lynette staring at Tom and Tom fixated on the pot of spaghetti. "What?"

Slowly, Tom turned to face her. Lynette felt her heart speed up as she realized that she could now give a name to the look that had been in his eyes for the past few weeks; the same look he was giving her now. Before he could say anything, she said, "I love you too."

Tom came over to stand between her legs where she sat on the counter and she immediately leaned forward to kiss him. Feeling as though she couldn't draw him close enough, she wrapped her legs around his waist, hooking her ankles together to hold him to her and pressing her chest directly into his. She broke the kiss and dropped her forehead to rest against his shoulder, overwhelmed by her emotions, and she could feel Tom's arms wrap around her back to hold her just as tightly as she held him. Lightly he kissed the space where her neck met her shoulder, her jaw and her ear. "I love you," he whispered again softly.

They ended up burning dinner.

_**Freezing**_

"Is it going to be too weird to go up against each other for the same job?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Didn't you hear? Ed's retiring next spring. They're going to hire a new VP."

"Oh. Yeah. That."

"Lynette?" Lynette bit her lip for a moment and then crossed the room to close her office door. "What's going on?"

"Look, you can't tell anyone this, okay?" Tom raised an eyebrow, but she didn't wait for further assent. "Anderson brought Lou, Natalie, Logan and me into his office a couple of weeks ago to tell us that. He told us that he's going to pick one of the four of us for the promotion."

"What?"

"That's why I was on your case about the Thompson account. If I land that—"

"If we land that."

"—that would really give me a leg up."

"So let me get this straight: you were using my work to push yourself ahead for a promotion that I don't have a chance of getting?"

Lynette felt her body tighten defensively. "That's not fair, Tom. Anderson put scoring that account on my and Lou's backs. Now that he's chosen our pitch, I'm going to be the one in hot water if we don't land it."

"But it's my work."

"I've been involved every step of the way."

"That's not the same. And you know it."

"Why are you acting like this? It's my job to know the pitch backward and forward. It's my job to actually present to the client. It's my job to get them to buy the idea. If I was working with any other creative director they'd understand this!"

Tom shook his head, apparently speechless, and walked toward the door, but Lynette refused to step out of his way. "It's not my fault that Anderson is making the decision this way."

"That's not why I'm mad."

"Yes it is. Because if Anderson was considering everyone then he'd be looking at your role in this account as seriously as he's looking at mine and my involvement wouldn't matter one way or the other to you. You wouldn't be acting so possessive."

"You know, you might be right. But I've been here for two years. You've been here for four months. So I'm entitled to be a little pissed." Before Lynette could respond, Tom jostled by her and left.

_**Thawing**_

Lynette knocked softly on Tom's office door and entered before he gave her permission. He looked up as she came in, but immediately turned his eyes back to his computer. "Hi," she said quietly.

"What's up?"

"I'm heading home."

"Okay."

"Do you think you'll be over tonight?"

"Probably."

Lynette raised an eyebrow, surprised. They'd never really fought before, but she'd expected him to bunker down at home for a couple of days until he cooled off. Dimly, she realized that she'd made that assumption based on what she would do and she frowned at the idea that Tom might be more lenient than she. "I could order a pizza."

"Sure."

She nodded even though Tom still wasn't looking at her and then backed out of the room without further comment.

The pizza ended up arriving before Tom, but she'd only eaten one slice when he knocked on her door. He was still in his suit—clearly he hadn't bothered going home—and he looked tired and upset. "Pizza's here," she said in lieu of a greeting. "Do you want to change first? I washed the clothes you left here last weekend."

Tom kissed her and then came into her living room, shedding his jacket and tie as he went. She followed him, collecting his clothes as she went. "Are you okay?"

"I'm thinking about quitting."

"What?"

Tom moved into the bedroom without answering her and undid his belt and pants, letting them drop to the floor. When he picked up the plaid pajama bottoms he'd left and still didn't answer her, she prompted, "Tom?"

"I'm thinking about quitting," he said again as he threw his dress shirt on the bed and pulled a worn t-shirt on instead. "You said Annabel mentioned a job at the Peterson firm? I checked it out and she did her research. They're looking to hire a new account executive before Christmas. I'm going to apply."

Lynette dropped Tom's clothes on the nearby chair, no longer caring if they got wrinkled. "Are you serious?"

"Why not? According to you I'm not going anywhere where I'm at now. This would be a slight step up and a pay increase. And Peterson's growing. I'm sure there will be upward mobility."

"Well that's…great."

"Don't lie. Tell me what you really think."

"I'm not lying. I'm just surprised. I wasn't expecting this."

Tom nodded and bent to kiss her forehead before he walked back into the living room. She watched in amazement as he flopped down on the couch, grabbed a piece of pizza and her half-drunken beer, and turned on the television. She had no idea what to make of his impulsive decision or his odd behavior. Hesitantly, she came in and sat down next to him, curling her feet beneath her and picking up another slice of pizza. After a moment he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and she felt the tension finally drain from her body.


	7. Countdown

**Disclaimer: **Not mine, not mine, not mine!

**A/n: ** Thanks for the reviews! I really appreciate them!

**The Glow of the Moon on a Starless Night**

A story by **Ryeloza**

**Part Seven: Countdown**

_**Five**_

It started the morning he used Lynette's shampoo in the shower instead of his own.

He was tired, so it wasn't until he registered the fruity scent that he realized he had picked up her bottle instead of his own. As he wondered just when Lynette had brought her own shampoo over, his eyes suddenly began to take in her other possessions that had made their way into his shower: a razor, conditioner, what appeared to be some lady shaving cream. A dawning comprehension filtered its way into his sleep-deprived brain and in some odd state of cataloging madness, Tom continued his investigation after the shower: a bathrobe hooked onto the back of the bathroom door; a second toothbrush in his cabinet; five pairs of panties and some stockings that had taken up residence in his sock drawer; three suits in his closet; two pairs of jeans; six t-shirts; three pairs of shoes. Still in nothing but a towel, Tom shook his head, bewildered, and wandered into the kitchen where Lynette calmly sliced a banana into her morning cereal.

The cereal he'd bought, knowing she liked it, when he went grocery shopping yesterday.

"You aren't dressed yet? We're going to be late."

"Are you living here?"

Lynette laughed. "No. Why?"

"Your stuff is everywhere!" Tom frowned. Maybe that had come out a little more accusatory than he'd intended.

"You should talk. You have twice as many clothes at my place plus probably a third of your CD collection and you brought over that weird little portable television. Not to mention all of your baseball gear, which you still haven't taken home since that game last weekend."

"Oh. Well. That's different."

"Sure it is. Look, how many nights have we spent apart in the past month? Maybe one or two a week? These things are bound to happen."

"We're living together." Tom considered the sound of the words as they came out of his mouth feeling odd and foreign. He hadn't lived with anyone since he was in college, but if cohabitating was what was actually going on here then it was infinitely better than sharing a dorm room with two other guys. Regular sex; someone to cook dinner with; a bed that actually got made; someone there to talk to about his day: those all seemed like distinct advantages.

"Not exactly," said Lynette, ruining his picture of something resembling domestic bliss. She took a bite of her cereal and looked up at him. "You're not to freak out like you did when you saw me using your razor, are you?"

"No." He kissed the top of her head. "Definitely not."

"Good. Now go get dressed."

_**Four**_

The phone rang and Tom pulled his toothbrush out of his mouth to yell, "Can you get that? It might be Charlie!" He and Lynette were going bowling with his friend Charlie and his on-again, off-again (currently on-again) girlfriend, but as usual Tom was running just a little late. It was a little strange that Charlie would call—he knew how Tom was—but if he was having problems with Veronica again then he might be impatient.

Spitting one last time and quickly rinsing his mouth out, Tom walked into the other room with every expectation that Lynette would be ready to go. Instead she sat on the arm of his couch, still on the phone. "No, he hasn't mentioned anything to me. No. No, I had no idea." She looked up at him and smiled. "He just came in the room; do you want to talk to him? Yep. Okay, you too. Bye." Lynette held the phone out to him and Tom raised a questioning eyebrow. Covering the mouth of the phone, she whispered, "Your mother."

Tom sighed and reluctantly took the phone. "Hey Mom, what's up?"

"When did you get a new girlfriend? Didn't you just break up with Annabel?!"

"Yeah, back in July. That was months ago." Lynette reached out and took his free hand, lightly kissing the back of it, before stroking it comfortingly. In light of his certainty that his mom had let Lynette know that he hadn't mentioned her to his parents, he was glad to see that she didn't seem upset.

"Well when did you start dating this Lynette?"

"In July."

"Oh Tom."

"Mom, Lynette and I really have to get going. Is there something you actually need right now?"

"Have you talked to Christa lately? She wants to make Shawn's sister and her husband the godparents."

"So?"

"So she promised me that this baby would have godparents from our side of the family. I was hoping you."

"I haven't been to church in years."

"Or at least your cousin Meghan."

"Christa doesn't like Meghan."

"Well I think you should talk to her."

Tom opened his mouth, prepared to protest, and Lynette dropped his hand to tap her watch. With a conciliatory groan, he said, "Fine, Mom. I'll call Christa. But right now I have to go."

"And you'll also call me back and tell me about this new girlfriend. Maybe we can actually meet this one."

Tom rolled his eyes. "Sure."

"Okay. Well I'll talk to you later."

"Bye." Tom clicked off the phone and passed it back to Lynette, who laid it in the cradle. "Sorry about that."

"She seems sweet."

"Oh yeah?"

Lynette smiled and hopped off of the arm of the couch while Tom picked up their jackets. "She asked if I'm Catholic."

"Oh no. She didn't."

"She also asked if I knew about your sister's choice for her new baby's godparents."

"Poor kid isn't even born yet." Tom picked up his keys and flicked off the lights, opening the door for Lynette.

She grinned at him, clearly delighting in her teasing, and backed out of the door. "You never told me that Shawn's sister thinks there should be female priests. What is your sister thinking? You should definitely intervene."

Tom locked the door and turned to face her. "Are you done?"

"Maybe."

"Good." He grabbed her around the middle, tickling her, and she erupted into giggles.

_**Three**_

"Thompson is going with us!" Lynette did the odd subtle victory dance she always did when she was particularly happy with herself and then pushed the door shut with her foot. "I kicked ass in that room. The work was amazing. You and I are going out to celebrate tonight."

"Congratulations."

"You should have seen Lou. He's pissed."

"The promotion is as good as yours."

"I wouldn't go quite that far. Anderson isn't making the decision until April. But it's a start."

Tom stood up and gave her a quick kiss that Lynette turned into a series of much longer ones. With a content little sigh, she finally parted from him, running her hand over his chest with an odd little smile on her face. "What's up?" he asked.

"I'm just really happy. Are you happy?"

"Yeah." Tom kissed her again. "I really am."

_**Two**_

Lynette stood in his kitchen with her back to him slicing tomatoes and for a moment, Tom simply stood, mesmerized. There was something particularly soft and lackadaisical about her tonight. It was nothing in particular, but rather many little things that combined seemed to rob her of her usual fiery intensity: the way she slowly drew the knife through the tomato again and again; how she'd lazily twisted her hair up and wisps of it had escaped, falling around her neck; the soft song she hummed under her breath; the way she wore his pajama pants rolled several times at the waist because they were too big for her and still the cuffs pooled around her feet. There was a calm loveliness surrounding her that wasn't necessarily unusual, but simply different, and he wanted to capture the memory in his mind.

Quietly, Tom approached her from behind, letting his hands settle on her hips and dipping his head to kiss her neck. He rested his chin on her shoulder, watching her cut the tomatoes for another minute, before saying, "I got the job."

The knife paused in her hand. "You did?"

"Yeah. I just got off the phone with Peterson. He said I could have the night to think about it, but I told him yes. I'll start in December."

Lynette set down the knife and turned to kiss him. "Congratulations!" She moved as though to kiss him again, then paused, staring up at him. "What's wrong? Aren't you excited?"

"No, I am. Definitely excited."

"Then what's going on?"

Tom shook his head, unable to answer, and simply kissed her again. He wasn't sure how to articulate how ambivalent he felt. How he was thrilled about the pay increase and change of venue; how he was proud of himself for getting the job; and at the same time how sick it made him feel to know that he'd no longer have a guarantee of seeing her every day.

All he could manage to do was keep kissing her and hope she would understand.

_**One**_

Overwhelmed.

Shocked.

Anxious.

Excited.

If Tom had been consciously aware of how he felt all of these things at one time, he might never have even opened the door. As it was, though, he was only aware of a great sense of rightness as he walked up to the counter and said, "I'm looking for an engagement ring."


	8. Light

**Disclaimer: **Well even after all this time I still own nothing. Too bad for me.

**The Glow of the Moon on a Starless Night**

A story by **Ryeloza**

**  
Part Eight: Light**

_**Flicker**_

"What are you doing?"

Lynette glanced over her shoulder to where she'd laid out some newspaper, a bowl and a knife among the three pumpkins she'd bought at the supermarket earlier. Tom had woken up that morning to go somewhere—he hadn't been clear—so he'd missed her impromptu purchase. Still. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Well yeah. But why?"

"Why not? There are a lot of kids in the building and they always come by on Halloween. I thought it would be fun." She sat down cross-legged on the floor and resumed digging out the innards of the pumpkin. "Do you want to help?"

"Can't I just eat whatever candy you bought?" He smiled when she rolled her eyes and sat down across from her, beginning to work on one of the pumpkins she'd already dug out. "I haven't done this since I was a kid."

Lynette flicked some seeds off of her fingers into the bowl and frowned. "I was ten the last time. Some teenagers came around and smashed our pumpkins. My mom caught them and retaliated by throwing the only pumpkin they hadn't gotten to at their car."

"Jeez."

"She always bragged about the size of the dent it left." Tom chuckled and Lynette smiled in spite of herself. "She was oddly protective of us when it came to anyone else."

Tom reached out and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear and Lynette shrugged, literally trying to shake off the mood she'd unintentionally created. "I bought Snickers and Milky Ways," she segued. "Do you want to come over on Thursday and help me hand it out?"

"Sure." Tom picked up his knife again and resumed cutting out the eyes on his pumpkin. "You know," he added, "I could see you defending your kids like that."

Lynette let out a bark off laughter. "Oh yeah. Right. _My _kids."

"You don't want any?"

"I just don't really see myself with a baby. Ever."

She could feel Tom's eyes on her again, but she kept hers firmly on her pumpkin. Having even one kid was a thought so outside the realm of possibility that it was laughable, let alone more than one. And she certainly didn't want to discuss this point.

"What do you think?" asked Tom.

Lynette sighed, prepared to defend herself as she always did when someone cooed _what do you mean you don't want a baby?, _but when she looked up it was simply to Tom holding up his pumpkin. The face was completely misshapen, but it was as grotesque as she believed a jack-o-lantern should be.

"Great." Tom nodded, but the smile that accompanied it didn't quite reach his eyes and her heart sank.

By the time they finished, the sky had darkened enough that Tom insisted on putting candles in the pumpkins and turning off the lights. As they stood in the flickering candlelight that emanated from the strange faces, Tom reached out for her hand and said quietly, "Kids aren't everything."

_**Sunshine**_

On Halloween, Tom had come over nearly bouncing with energy and when she'd pointedly asked him if he'd gotten into the candy, he'd laughed and announced he'd made reservations at a fancy restaurant for the next night. Regretfully, she'd had to tell him that she already had plans, and his enthusiasm waned so that he barely cheered up when they had a third of a bowl of candy left over.

Two days later, he'd rebounded and asked her out for the following Saturday, but he wouldn't say where they were going.

She was beginning to regret agreeing to whatever impromptu date he'd planned.

Tom's hands were warm as they rested over her eyes as was the sun beating down, but there was a strong chill in the November air that made her shiver. "Are you ready?"

"Yes."

Tom's hands lifted from her eyes and she blinked for a moment in the bright light. "A lake?" she asked curiously.

"I told you I'd take you out on my boat sometime."

"Yeah, but November seems like an odd time of year to do it."

"Come on; it'll be fun. We'll go out for a couple of hours and then I made a reservation at the restaurant down the road. Plus, I brought your coat."

Lynette laid the back of her hand over Tom's forehead. "You don't seem to have a fever," she joked. "Seriously, what's going on? You've been acting jumpy all week."

"Nothing is going on! I just want to do something different."

"Something crazy."

"Something romantic."

Lynette sighed and looked out at the lake. The water lightly lapped the edges of the sand and on some warm summer she could see herself out on a sailboat with Tom for hours, lounging in her bathing suit. In November, though, the water seemed less friendly and the whole idea less appealing.

Tom took her hand, and she glanced back to him. "Please," he said. "Just go with me on this one."

"Okay. Fine. You're insane, but we'll do it."

"Great! You won't regret it!" Tom picked her up and spun her around once and despite herself she began to laugh.

_**Glow**_

Sailing had been more fun than she'd expected—they'd used her coat more as a blanket while they had sex on the floor of the boat than to keep her warm—and the restaurant had been downright romantic, so Lynette couldn't bring herself to complain when Tom insisted on taking a walk on the docks in the chilly night air. It was quiet; there were hardly any people around at this time of the year, and Tom was being oddly silent as they walked, but it was nice.

Lynette looked up at the sky and rubbed her hands up and down her upper arms in attempt to warm them up. "Isn't that odd?" she asked. "You can see the moon but not the stars tonight. I'd expect that in the city, but not out here."

"Lynette?"

"Hmm?" She glanced over at Tom for a second and then did a double take as she noticed how he stared at her, off-put by how nervous he seemed. There was something in his hands that he kept turning over and over, fiddling with it incessantly, but she couldn't tell what it was. Just as she was about to ask him what was wrong, he took a deep, shuddery breath and she hesitated.

"I'm in love with you," he said, and she was startled by how wet his eyes suddenly seemed. "Completely, totally in love with you. And I never understood what that kind of love meant until recently. It means that I can't wait to talk to you every day. It means that I want to take care of you and make you laugh and hold you when you cry. It means that you make me a better person. And it…It means that I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

Lynette tried to swallow the lump in her throat and failed. Suddenly the moon and the cold air and the water and the boats all disappeared and all she could see in front of her was this wonderful man who was about to ask her a question that she'd never truly expected to hear. And in that moment—that pause between what he'd said and what was still to come—she suddenly saw a whole lifetime of new possibilities ahead of her that stretched infinitely outward and solely depended on her answer.

Tom finally stopped playing with the object in his hands and unclasped them to reveal a small, black jewelry box that he slowly opened. At the sight of the diamond ring, Lynette finally let a small sob break through as Tom said, "Lynette, will you marry me?"

Openly crying in a way she rarely allowed herself, Lynette nodded. "Yes." She threw her arms around him and kissed him. Despite shaking from head to toe, despite the tears, she felt strong and sure and confident and loved. She kissed him again, smiling against his lips. "Yes, I will."

_-Fin-_

**A/n: **Thank you so much to everyone who has read and reviewed! I've decided to end the story here, but I might do a continuation at some point as there are obviously some threads that I've left that could be picked up. Plus I just really enjoyed writing this! I'd love to know what you thought of the ending or the story overall, so please click on that little review box. Thanks so much!


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